1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to Medical Systems and in particular to patient blood pressure monitoring and labeling display systems.
2. Background
It is often necessary in hospitals, health care facilities and other locations to collect and display a variety of medical data of a patient. The medical data is obtained from sensors capable of detecting information on the physical parameters or body condition. Frequently, multiple modes, locations on the patient, and means of obtaining a representative indication of a vital sign of the patient is needed to properly monitor and care for the patient. One such vital sign is blood pressure. A plurality of blood pressures are measured simultaneously at various locations in the blood circulatory system of the patient (e.g. at left atrium, right atrium, left ventricle as well as right ventricle).
One of the considerations in the design or selection of a monitoring system is the speed and facility or ease in connecting and disconnecting the sensors, and fluid tubes to/from the patient as well as electrical support cables and connectors associated with the monitoring apparatus.
As the patient is changed from one level of care to another, it is frequently desirable to increase the level of monitoring to observe additional parameters of vital signs measured at a different location on the body or to change the method of monitoring from invasive to noninvasive or vice versa. This change or increase of monitoring results in the connection and/or reconnection of sensors, support tubes and cables. In addition, during an emergency, the speed at which a patient is treated by a health care provider is affected by the speed at which the patient is functionally connected to those sensors which provide vital signs and other medical input data. Accordingly, whether during emergency or non-emergency conditions, the process of connecting/reconnecting sensors and their associated fluid tubes and electrical cables as well as setting up the associated monitoring apparatus, is both time consuming and can lead the user to mislabeling one or more of the sensors, their associated fluid tubes, and/or at the electronic output display from the sensor.
Furthermore, the user of monitoring systems label the blood pressure sensors manually with either preprinted or hand written identification tags. Such manual labeling is prone to mislabeling of a sensor. In addition, the labels can become separated from the sensor, or become damaged from either handling or from the fluids found in a clinical environment, and thereby become unreadable.
Even if manual labeling of the sensors is not faultily performed, or the labels do not become separated from their associated sensor, a further disadvantage of labeling is that the blood pressure channel associated with each blood pressure sensor has to be labeled by the user twice; once at the sensor, manually as described above; and once again at the remote output display monitor either manually or electronically. The need to label the blood pressure channel twice, either both times manually, or once manually and once electronically at a remote monitoring location from the sensor(s), creates the opportunity for error due to improperly labeling one or more sensors, or by cross-labeling two or more sensors.
It would thus be an advantage to have an electronic display for labeling each pressure sensor of a blood pressure monitor where each label is located physically close to its corresponding pressure sensor.
It would be a further advantage to electronically display a user defined electrical label, created once by the user at a display monitor location and displayed next to or in the visual field of the user of its corresponding pressure sensor, without the user having to re-create the label at the location of the pressure sensor.